Ep 248 When You Promote Your Best Employee and It Backfires: The Coaching Table

Three high-performing individual contributors got promoted to lead roles. All three are now miserable. The manager who promoted them is asking what to do. In this episode, Humanergy coaches John Barrett and Quay Eady work through exactly that scenario — why it happens, what the manager can do now, and what organizations consistently get wrong about developing people before they're promoted. The conversation covers a practical tool called FROM/TO for mapping where someone's strengths came from and what success looks like in their new role. Humanergy helps leaders and organizations work through real challenges like this one. Learn more at humanergy.com.

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Transcript

Mimi Mitrius (00:11) Hey everybody, welcome back to The Coaching Table, a Humanergy Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Mimi Mitrius. Joining me today, we have co-founder of Humanergy and master coach John Barrett, and Humanergy coach and Navy veteran Quay Eady. Hey John, hey Quay.

Quay (00:28) Hey Mimi!

John (00:28) Hey — maybe we'll get to see you.

Mimi Mitrius (00:30) Yeah, good to see you both. Before we dive in, I want to turn it over to you to see if you've got anything you'd like to say.

John (00:39) Well, excited for this opportunity. I'm glad to be working with Quay and I anticipate some great bouncing of ideas back and forth. With your help, Mimi.

Quay (00:54) Absolutely — super excited to be here and to share this with the world. I feel like coaching is such a great lane to enter into at all levels of your career. So I'm super excited to share today.

Mimi Mitrius (01:05) Great. Well, thank you both for taking the time to be here. So Quay and John are hearing this scenario for the first time right now — no prep, no script. They're going to explore what's really going on inside this leadership challenge and uncover some powerful questions and hopefully some really valuable insights for our listeners.

Today's scenario came from a leadership forum online. Sometimes we find these out in the world. They're real leaders, real situations, posted anonymously in corners of the internet where people actually say what they're really thinking. So if you've got a scenario and you'd like our coaches to dig into it, you can submit that on the podcast page of the humanergy.com website.

The issue we're going to dive into today is something we see a lot with Humanergy clients. So I was really happy to read such an honest take on it. Here we go.

"Three of my best ICs — individual contributors — got promoted to lead roles in the last 18 months. All three are now struggling. They're visibly less engaged than before the promotion. They were promoted because they were exceptional at the work. The lead role requires them to stop doing the work and start managing the people doing the work. The traits I promoted them for — execution speed, technical depth, direct problem solving — are exactly the traits the new role doesn't use. I essentially promoted them out of their strengths, and now I'm managing three people who are very competent but miserable in roles designed for a completely different type of person. And I'm not sure how to deal with this."

I'll let that sink in for a minute. If you need me to read anything back, let me know. I'd love to hear your initial thoughts.

John (03:04) So imagining we were with somebody sharing that — I think what I'd like to do as a coach is really work with the person's thought process. One phrase I've heard used to describe that is guided self-discovery, where the self-discovery is primary and the guiding is what I, as a coach, bring to the table. Because any solutions or insights that get generated, the person has to own them. They have to understand them, because at the end of the day, they're the one who has to execute in real life. That requires judgment and timing, which requires understanding. And then they actually have to do it, which requires belief.

So our Humanergy way is, we like to start with questions. I imagine I'd probably start with something like: when this is successfully resolved and everybody has a smile on their face, what would that look like? Describe that success.

Quay (04:25) To add on to that, Mimi — I feel like this may be a common issue in the workplace. There are a lot of times those rock star employees, those quarterbacks, get promoted to coach. And so how do you go from quarterback to coach, from employee to manager, and then learn a new set of skills?

The skills that they mastered — they were great at the job, fast to execution — those aren't really the skills needed for leadership. So I would suggest leadership training, because they didn't wake up good at those jobs they mastered. They actually built those skills. So building the leadership skills they need would be a way to move forward.

What I would do is ask them: what specific skills do they need to improve on, or what's missing? And start the conversation there.

John (05:39) So taking that — there's the how to do that. And then there's also part of the story, Quay, where I'm not sure this person is even certain these people want to continue in some ways. The word "miserable" was used.

So a question to put in there would be to create a zone of safety and say, "Hey, how's it going? What are you experiencing? What's working for you? What's a challenge? Is this what you expected — and what wasn't?" Just provide a place for someone who's visibly struggling to say what's on their mind.

Because depending on how they react to that, there are different paths. There's building, developing, and growing. But there's also the other end — maybe this wasn't the greatest idea, and what might be the options. And then everything in between.

Quay (07:14) Yeah, I agree, John. There's definitely space for a transformative discussion. What the manager can also do is sit down with the employee and find some common ground. "You've been promoted into this role. It seems like you're miserable. What's the vision for this role? What's the vision for your career? Is people management in the cards for you?"

Most people trying to grow their careers see managing people as the next level. So how do we get them prepared for the role they're already in? I don't know if backtracking would be the right career move for most people in this situation. So how do we develop the skills necessary to reduce the misery and increase the job satisfaction?

John (08:24) You're absolutely right. In a lot of organizations I've worked with, they're good at getting people on the highway — but they're not great at helping people come off the highway gracefully. That is actually an opportunity for most organizations, because if they get good at both, that's great for everybody.

And building off what you were saying, Quay — there's the guidance and coaching of the direct reports. And there's also the guidance and coaching of this manager. Because what the manager self-disclosed, reading between the lines, was: "I promoted them and I'm just as surprised as everybody else that this isn't working." So there's a development opportunity for the manager too — in understanding how they got here, and also how they help somebody untangle this and make lemonade out of the current lemons.

So yes, it's common. It's challenging. And I think there's an opportunity for growth for everybody.

Mimi Mitrius (10:14) I'm going to recap what I'm hearing, because I feel like this is good insight from a foundational level. We've got a couple of miserable people, and probably an unhappy manager too, all because we promoted people who are really great doers but not necessarily built for people management yet. And there's an opportunity there for everyone.

And Quay's point about "this is the next level" — people want to make more money. That's something worth highlighting. Stepping into a new role means you make more money, but it also means you have to refine some skills or develop new ones you may never have had before. Everything both of you are saying gives great starting-point questions: Where are we? What is making you miserable? What is your goal? What is your vision? Do you actually even want to stay in this position?

All of that is a really rich place to start. So where do we go from there? What have you seen in your coaching?

Quay (11:38) In my experience, when I've worked with an individual contributor promoted into management, one of the hurdles they face is working with people who used to be their peers — and now being in charge of them.

So one of the questions I always ask is: what relationship do you want to have with your direct reports who used to be your peers? What do you want that to look like? After they share what that looks like, I ask: have you shared that with your new team?

Setting the expectation, delivering some non-negotiables — "This is how we're going to work together. This is how we're going to communicate. These are my expectations for our team." It's almost like a roadmap to better relationships. A terms-and-conditions of our work partnership.

Once people get that outlined, things start to move smoother. Because I can imagine that if one of my peers became my boss, that could bring up some emotion — "They're not going to tell me what to do." And it's like, how do we thrive in this new relationship dynamic? That's up to the leader to set that stage, set the expectation, and move forward.

Mimi Mitrius (13:15) Especially if you were just at happy hour with them, right?

John (13:32) The build I'd have — and I think it's a great point — is that if left unaddressed, it can really drag on. People are second-guessing, third-guessing, there's a whole lot going on in people's heads. But having that conversation — the add I'd offer is making it a two-way conversation. Because both parties have to shift.

There's the shift of what Quay needs from me, and also what I need from Quay. It's putting up the road signs, the rules of the road, with the recognition that things are naturally different now — but they're different and clear and aligned. And once you have that, you've taken out a lot of unnecessary noise and ambiguity from the situation. That allows you to make that key transition a lot better. You're not going to get a perfect outcome, but the amount of imperfection is a lot smaller and a lot more manageable.

Quay (14:58) Yes, John. It makes me think about Humanergy's model of What Great Teams Do Great. Starting with that as a foundation to the conversation the new manager and team should have. They could just walk right through that framework and build a solid foundation from there.

John (15:22) Yeah. Having that in place — going back to your point about what it is that people need to develop and grow into: one of the best tools I've come across and used many times over the years is a simple format I call FROM and TO.

You take a piece of paper, put a line down the middle. FROM on the left, TO on the right. You walk through with the person — in this case, the manager walks through it with the direct report. In the position they did so well and were recognized for: what were the thinking skills, the competencies, the key actions? Let's make a blueprint of what your success looked like.

Now let's do the exact same process for what success looks like in the new role.

Because typically what I find is, while people understand it's not working, they don't necessarily have a clear picture of why it's not working and what specifically isn't working.

The other thing that happens is a lot of the skills that got them where they got aren't going to go away. They just need to be reshaped. So — "I was really good at technical solutions, really good at giving and answering technical questions." That skill now just needs to evolve from giving to asking. Because it actually takes technical knowledge to ask the right question. So you're able to map out clearly for somebody: "All is not lost. You have this wonderful thing to build on. You can keep these things. You just modify from statement to question on these things. And there's one or two additional areas that are going to be a work in progress."

Just getting that clear for people — I've had lots of people who say, "Can you capture that?" And that piece of paper becomes like the poster board at their desk that they reference. It keeps getting them back to: I'm on this journey. It's a journey of transformation. And it also allows them to recognize when they slip back and double down on what they're most comfortable with. Because quite often that choice causes a whole lot of derivative problems that makes their life even more miserable.

What do you think, Quay?

Quay (18:40) Building on that — it makes me think about two things: understand, then expand. Once the manager understands what's causing the misery, what's creating this discomfort, how do we expand on the good things? How do we create more of what worked, just from a different lens?

I totally agree. Once you understand people's strengths and weaknesses, you can build a plan to lean into the strengths. And I always say: outsource your weaknesses.

Mimi Mitrius (19:36) I'd add too — the idea of FROM to TO, and understand to expand: both of those framings feel really hopeful. All of a sudden, as a newly promoted employee, I have some hope because I can see a path forward. It doesn't feel quite as heavy as it did, because I have a clearer understanding of what I'm really good at and how that can actually help me in this new place.

Whereas before, I'm dealing with imposter syndrome. I'm not qualified. All of the things are running through my brain because I'm just failing at this new role and I don't understand fully how my strengths actually play into where I am now. So that framing from both of you is really hopeful. I hope anybody listening takes that away.

John (20:33) Yeah. And so you have the master plan, the FROM and TO. Maybe it's 10 to 15 key things. And like you said, it does shrink large misery down to doable actions and development.

And there are some techniques you can use to even strengthen that. For example, let's say somebody looks at a FROM and TO and still feels like, "But that's me in the FROM column. That's who I am." One of the more powerful things I've learned is you then take their FROM column and say, "You know what? You weren't always this FROM." Let's go back five years and put up FROM five years ago — and say, five years ago, what was your thinking, what were your strengths? What they'll see is there's a quantitative and qualitative difference between five years ago and today. So the moral of the story is: look at that. You went from here to here. That's a really good reminder for someone stuck in that place.

Another way people get stuck is when the FROM and TO still looks like a chasm. So then what I often do is metaphorically cut the FROM and TO in half — put FROM on the left, TO on the right, and divide the space in between into three columns. Let's break this journey down. The first column: things that seem easy and obvious and doable. Let's put the easiest stuff in there.

"I think I can take things I'm good at and turn them into good questions with a little help." Okay, put that in column one. Now let's assume you've done column one — what would go in column two?

The idea is you're taking the psychological elephant and helping people break it into doable. Two things I've encountered: one, this belief of "I am who I am" — and helping people see that isn't as fixed as they believe. And two, taking what feels like a large jump and breaking it into smaller, maybe even baby steps. Maybe it's two columns, maybe it's five columns, maybe it's just one and you come back in two weeks and see how it's going.

Mimi Mitrius (24:24) Baby steps to the elevator. Did anybody see What About Bob?

John (24:26) I recently watched that movie again for the first time in 30 years. I kind of realized it was old.

So what do you think, Quay — I know there's a lot going on there.

Quay (24:45) Yeah, there is. I really like that — when you can break things down, it makes it more digestible. And then you can take each step, have a little success, and that creates some momentum for the next thing. I really like that.

I'd go back to the original poster and ask them: what leadership characteristics did you see in those individual contributors that prompted the promotion? In that analysis, how can we leverage those — highlight them, illuminate them — so the newly promoted person can lean into them to then help develop the rest?

So first, finding out: what were those initial qualities that suggested they'd be great for the position? Was it communication? I know they had the technical skills. But what were some of the harder soft skills that made them seem like a good fit?

John (26:00) I could see that going one or two ways. The takeaway might be that there's a big development piece there — that they were promoted based on their performance, not their potential or capability for the next role. They delivered and delivered and delivered. And the person wasn't necessarily selecting for the next position.

That might be the takeaway: I think I made a mistake — and it's a common one. Although that still leaves the issue of: these three people are promoted now, so what do we do to make them as successful as possible?

I really like leaning into strengths and not losing sight of them. And I'd come back to this: sometimes the strengths don't apply directly, they just need a little tweak — like going from giving an answer to asking the question. That's a tweak. And as a coach, you can have repetitive practice around that. Ask the person: identify 10 things you would tell someone what to do. Now, for each one — you're not going to tell them. You're going to ask a question that helps them come to the answer. What would that question be?

That kind of repetitive behavioral practice helps them get over the hump. Because if they leave a coaching conversation thinking "I need to repurpose my strength," when they get into a real moment with real people, the likelihood of pulling that off spontaneously is close to zero. They need rehearsal. That's where coaching helps — zeroing in on those things and giving people a fighting chance to practice.

Quay (28:39) Right. And the thing that stuck out to me from your comment is: performance over potential. How many times do we see people promoted for pure performance? But the good thing about that is if they performed well as an individual contributor, the performance factor is there. They just need to be aligned with the expectations of this leadership position.

And sometimes when you're promoted just from performance, you think, "I just need to do this job even better and show other people how to do it the way I did it." That's partially true. But I think the challenge becomes getting the rest of the team up to speed to perform at your level. And that may actually be a nice little transition into stronger leadership skills with powerful questions.

If I'm fast to execution and have a lot of momentum, asking "What could increase your momentum on this? Where are you getting stuck? Where's the sticky point?" — that's the translation.

John (30:33) You triggered a thought — slightly different words for what you said about getting aligned with the new set of expectations. In the TO column, the KPIs are different from the FROM column.

A coaching conversation I've heard many times is: "What was your definition of best?" Because performers want to be the best. But the definition of best has shifted. In the FROM column, best means I have the best solutions, I get the job done fastest. It's all about me.

Now, it's about how well I enable others to do their best. One of the key shifts is: your new KPI in the TO column is being best at your people doing best. You got an A before on the old measure. But that's not even the measure anymore.

Best is now whatever it takes to have the best from my people. Whatever it takes for my people to do their best thinking — not me doing my best thinking, but them doing their best thinking. That shift from "me" to "us" or "them" is super powerful in getting a headline around the right goal. And then the machinery they have is now chasing the right thing. Because if that shift doesn't happen, they end up chasing what they know — and that's not good for them, and it's certainly not good for their new direct reports.

Quay (33:03) Yeah. The job of leaders is to influence — influence high performance from your team. And how you go about influencing your team requires you to know them. To apply some emotional intelligence in understanding your people: what's going to motivate them, drive them, push them, influence them to move in the direction the organization wants to go.

As a newly promoted manager or supervisor, my job is now to influence. And I feel like that is often not shared at the promotion party.

John (34:10) So it's making that TO column come alive for the person in a meaningful way.

Couple of thoughts on how you do that. One: once you've got a growing blueprint of what the new great looks like, ask — are there places in your life where you already do any of these things? What I've found is that even though a person might be a super individual contributor at work, they actually may be a great mom or a great dad — where you learn pretty quickly that you don't control anything and you need to work through influence. Or they might be a scout leader, or something else where they've done these things without connecting the dots.

It's just taking that from being a secondary thing in a certain setting and saying: you've already worked some of this out. How do we pull that through, expand it, and take it from a small role to a starring role?

The second one: as you look at this TO column, is there somebody you really respect who you think does a great job of this? Because the more you can tap into stuff that already exists — whether it's direct experience or even just observational — it saves a lot of unnecessary work. It's not a cut and paste, but it's there. It just needs to be activated.

"I had this great leader, and what did they do that was so great? And what impact did they have?" You're just fanning that flame. Now imagine trying to build that from scratch — that's painful and unnecessarily painful. So, a couple more thoughts.

Quay (37:26) I totally agree with that, John. It makes me think — if we were talking about basketball players: who's your Kobe, who's your LeBron, who's your MJ? What about them do you want to bring into you? Those great attributes, characteristics, habits — how can you expand those into your world?

That whole understand-and-expand approach is a life changer. Once you can understand the qualities in someone you admire, honestly, the reason you can admire them is because you recognize those qualities — they're already in you. Then how do we expand them out into this new role?

John (38:08) Yeah, I agree. I also want to take something you said, because it's important but it's the flip side. Sometimes you can't grab the TO until you let go of the FROM.

And we love the FROM. We were good at it. We've been practicing it. We got rewarded for it. Everybody said we were awesome at it. And now we're going to the TO where it feels like going back a couple of grades. So you've got to get excited about your Kobe or your LeBron — and to some degree, you may also need some help letting go of the FROM.

Because to use your analogy: think of a basketball player who was really, really good, but wasn't a team player. Yeah, he was great, but everybody hated to have him on their team. My point being: you want to activate the TO, but in some ways you've also got to help the person buy into letting go of the FROM. Because what might have served them before is actually a liability if they carry it forward.

Quay (39:59) Yeah. It reminds me of something one of my old mentors told me: to grab onto something new, you've got to let go of what's old. We sometimes have such a tight grip on the way things were — and what was so great about it — that we're afraid to let go and let something more powerful come into our hands.

It's truly about letting go of the FROM and reaching out toward the TO. And when we reach out toward it, it meets us halfway. I really love this FROM to TO analogy. That's beautiful.

Mimi Mitrius (40:52) So as we're nearing the last few minutes together, I want to zoom out from this scenario. We've been looking at it on a more granular level, and I'd like to ask you both: what does this scenario suggest about the overall organizational culture? Because we've got three people recently promoted who are now miserable in their roles, and the manager who promoted them may not have recognized the right fit or the right timing. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

John (41:44) I think the suspicion you have — that there's more to the picture — is spot on.

In real life, it's unlikely that a manager promoted three people without some input from HR or their own leadership. So it more likely speaks to a common scenario: this organization does really well on performance KPIs. Performance KPIs are very dominant. And the whole idea of thinking about potential and capability for the next role is an afterthought at best. This is probably the latest case study in an organization where this sort of thing tends to happen more than it's the exception.

And that does speak to a prevailing mindset, probably built into the performance management system. So there are some things worth identifying: is this a one-off, or is this a pattern? If it's a pattern, then let's look at this more systemically. What's the typical performance management process, both what's on paper and what's common practice? Are we creating the probability of this happening again? That opens a whole big conversation about systemic factors, way beyond the scope of this. But I think you're spot on: this may be a symptom of a larger process issue.

Quay (44:10) For me, I can see a couple of different lanes. One: maybe the company is growing really fast and promoting people internally who aren't ready for the role because they haven't had leadership training. Another lane: there's high turnover, and they're backfilling positions whether the person is ready or not.

In both cases, the organization is not preparing the leadership pipeline. There's something missing where the people ready to promote aren't really ready because they haven't been trained on how to lead a team. Either we're growing faster than our leadership training can keep up with, or turnover is high and we're plugging people where we need them.

A solution that could help both situations: prepare the pipeline. We know succession planning happens. But in that plan, are we training the bench with leadership skills and capabilities so when the time comes to promote someone, they're ready? Where's the training? Is it an organizational priority to make sure people are ready for their next role? If not, we end up here. And this can be a slippery slope — what if those three people leave, and now we've got to put someone else into the role who wasn't ready either?

Internal hires are a good sign. It means the organization believes they have good people. But good people need training too.

Mimi Mitrius (46:27) So the moral of the story is: leadership development equals high employee retention rates.

John (46:34) Yeah.

Quay (46:34) Yes. And people ready for the next role. Role readiness should be a department somewhere. Turnover is going to happen — nobody has 100% retention. Someone might win the lottery and leave. So do we have the redundancy built in? Is someone ready? Every organization should make sure their people are prepared for the next role.

Mimi Mitrius (47:03) All right. If anything from today's conversation got you thinking, that's kind of the point. If your organization could use this kind of thinking in real time, that's what we do here at Humanergy. Head to humanergy.com to learn more about our coaching and leadership development work. We can definitely help you develop those leadership pipelines.

And if you have a specific leadership situation you'd like us to work through on a future episode, submit it on our website. We'll keep it anonymous. Please keep your situations real, and we'll take it from there. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks, John. Thanks, Quay.

John (47:40) Thanks everybody. Thanks Quay. Thanks Mimi.

Quay (47:42) You guys are great.